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What I took away from this phrase "allow for serendipity" was that instead of trying to research every choice to death, you should limit the things you have to pick from and then allow the results of the choice to surprise you. There are very few things that I've ever tried to research extensively before making a decision. I think choosing colleges to apply to was the first one that I felt I really had to be sure about because people made such a big deal out of it. But even though I tried to visit colleges and find out all the information I was supposed to about them, I couldn't pay attention to all the little details others in my position seemed so concerned about. I just thought that all those specific questions would be better to ask after you decided to go there, so you didn't have to try to remember the answers from each of 50 different colleges. In the end, I just made kind of a random list and decided that those were the colleges I'm going to apply to, then I'll just see what happens. It turned out well for me, I really like Bryn Mawr and even though I only applied because I liked being able to leave my umbrella at the entrance of the dining hall the one time I visited. Serendipity has worked well in my life, not just in this situation. I don't mean to sound like you can go around not thinking about any of your decisions and everything will be fine. I just think that it wouldn't hurt to be a little less neurotic about those decisions.